1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical component housing device, for a construction machine such as a hydraulic shovel, for housing electrical components such as a relay member in such a manner that an operator is accessible to the electrical components from the outside for maintenance.
2. Description of the Background Art
The background art of the invention is described by an example of a compact hydraulic shovel called as a mini-shovel as shown in FIGS. 5 and 6.
As shown in FIG. 5, the hydraulic shovel is provided with a crawler-type lower propelling body 1, an upper slewing body 2 which is loaded on the lower propelling body 1 to be sleweable around a vertical axis, and a working attachment 3 mounted on a front part of the upper slewing body 2.
The upper slewing body 2 is provided with an upper frame 4, a seat stand 5 disposed on an upper surface (driver's seat floor 4a) of the upper frame 4, an unillustrated engine and unillustrated peripheral devices thereof which are disposed beneath (in an engine room) the seat stand 5, a base 7 disposed on the seat stand 5, a driver's seat 6 disposed on the seat stand 5 via the base 7, a canopy 9 which covers the driver's seat 6 from above, and a handrail 10 attached to a front end of the driver's seat floor 4a. An operator manipulates various operation levers (a propelling lever 8 is shown as an example of the operation levers in FIG. 5) which are provided on the driver's seat floor 4a in a state that the operator is seated on the driver's seat 6.
In the specification, leftward and rightward directions, and forward and rearward directions are the viewing directions of the operator seated on the driver's seat 6.
In the hydraulic shovel, there is known a technology (e.g. Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-96609, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2002-242225, and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2003-13469) of forming a housing space for electrical components beneath a driver's seat.
Hereinafter, a comparative example, which is proposed to form a housing space for electrical components beneath a driver's seat, is described referring to FIGS. 7 and 8.
In the comparative example shown in FIGS. 7 and 8, a seat stand 5 formed into a rectangular parallelepiped box-like shape is utilized as a housing box for housing electrical components therein, in other words, a housing box for electrical components is also used as the seat stand 5. Hereinafter, the seat stand 5 is called as a housing box.
Further, in the comparative example shown in FIGS. 7 and 8, the housing box 5 has a partition board 11 which stands upright to separate the inside of the housing box 5 into left and right two spaces S1, S2 to efficiently utilize the space and to simplify the housing structure. The space S1 in the housing box 5 is used to house electrical components 12 such as a relay member, and the space S2 in the housing box 5 is used to house machine tools 13 such as a spanner wrench, and a hammer.
A front surface of the housing box 5 is formed with a maintenance opening 5a for allowing the operator to perform maintenance such as checking or exchanging the electrical components 12, and to put the machine tools 13 in and out of the housing box 5. The housing box 5 is further provided with an opening/closing cover 14 for opening or closing the maintenance opening 5a, and hinges 15, 15 which pivotally support the opening/closing cover 14 to be openable and closable.
A rectangular plate-like support member 16 is fixed in the space S1 (hereinafter, the space S1 is called as an electrical component housing space, and the other space S2 is called as a machine tool housing space) in the housing box 5, as opposed to the maintenance opening 5a. The electrical components 12 are attached to a front surface of the support member 16.
Further, a wiring port 17 is formed in a bottom surface of the housing box 5 within the electrical component housing space S1. A trunk harness 18 (such as a wire harness) formed by bundling harnesses for connecting the respective electrical components 12 to an external device is drawn into the housing box 5 through the wiring port 17. Each of the harnesses branched out of the trunk harness 18 is connected to the corresponding electrical component 12.
In the comparative example shown in FIGS. 7 and 8, the inside of the housing box 5 is separated into the spaces S1, S2 each having a fixed size by the partition board 11, and the machine tool housing space S2 is prepared as a remainder space of the electrical component housing space S1. As a result, the machine tool housing space S2 is inevitably narrow in a condition that the size of the housing box is restricted.
Thus, the housing capacity and/or the sizes of the machine tools 13 housable in the housing box are restricted, and usability of the housing box is poor such as difficulty in putting the machine tools 13 in and out of the housing box.
As a countermeasure against the above drawback, there is proposed an idea of reducing the size of the electrical component housing space S1 and increasing the size of the machine tool housing space S2 by mounting the support member 16 in the housing box 5 in a direction orthogonal to the maintenance opening 5a (in a direction in parallel to the partition board 11).
The above arrangement, however, results in shortage in the space used for maintenance of the electrical components 12, which makes it difficult to perform the maintenance of the electrical components 12.